Another Trump Mental Illness: Severe Paranoia

Trump has always believed that if you talk something up enough you can make it happen. It's different from just plain lying and different from gaslighting. It's a form of manipulation common in the New York City business world. On Sunday he told reporters, "I don't think we're having a recession. We're doing tremendously well. Our consumers are rich. I gave a tremendous tax cut and they're loaded up with money." Loaded? I wonder how many of his supporters in the farm belt or the rust belt feel loaded with money. He repeated the talking point according to CNN, on the tarmac as he was leaving Bedminster, claiming, incredibly, that he is "prepared for everything" but that "most economists" don't think a recession is on the horizon as growing fears of a slowdown persist. "We are doing tremendously well. Consumers are rich, tax cut loaded up with money. I saw Walmart numbers through the roof, better than any poll." He claims the rest of the world is in recession, but he's keeping us out of one with his brilliance. Does anyone believe anything he says? 39% of registered voters says they are either definitely voting to reelect him or probably voting to reelection him. I wonder if any of them have 3-digit IQs. I doubt it.

There's nothing funny about a recession-- except Trump's conspiracy theories. He hasn't worked it into his stage act yet... but he will. Right now he just talks with his confidants about how everyone is trying to hurt him by crashing the U.S. economy. Maggie Haberman wrote that he's lashing out at the enemies he thinks are trying to undermine him-- like his own handpicked Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell" intentionally acting against him, other countries, including allies, working to hurt American economic interests, and, of course, the news media who he's been accusing of trying to create a recession.

The blowhard-in-chief tweeted that "The Fake News Media is doing everything they can to crash the economy because they think that will be bad for me and my re-election. The problem they have is that the economy is way too strong and we will soon be winning big on Trade, and everyone knows that, including China!"

Trump has repeated the claims in private discussions with aides and allies, insisting that his critics are trying to take away what he sees as his calling card for re-election. Mr. Trump has been agitated in discussions of the economy, and by the news media’s reporting of warnings of a possible recession. He has said forces that do not want him to win have been overstating the damage his trade war has caused, according to people who have spoken with him. And several aides agree with him that the news media is overplaying the economic fears, adding to his feeling of being justified, people close to the president said.

The claims provide a ready target to help Mr. Trump deflect blame if the economy does tip into recession. But whether they could truly insulate the president on what could be a significant issue of the 2020 election after he has so conspicuously wrapped himself in the good economic news of the past two years remains an open question, and he and his advisers have sought to tamp down concerns that a downturn is on the way.

“Our economy is the best in the world, by far,” Mr. Trump tweeted on Sunday. “Lowest unemployment ever within almost all categories. Poised for big growth after trade deals are completed.”

“I don’t see a recession,” he told reporters later on Sunday before leaving his private golf club in Bedminster, N.J., for Washington. But he added that if the economy slowed down, “it would be because I have to take on China and some other countries,” singling out the European Union as among those treating the United States “very badly.”

...The attacks come as the economy has begun flashing some warning signs, despite unemployment near historic lows and relatively high marks by voters on Mr. Trump’s economic stewardship. Global growth has been slowing. Last week, stock markets plunged as the yield on the 10-year Treasury note briefly fell below that of the two-year Treasury note, an unusual situation known as an inversion of the yield curve that is considered one of the most reliable leading indicators of recession in the United States.

And signs of damage from Mr. Trump’s trade war with China have been mounting.

In some conversations, the president has been preoccupied with the trade war, as well as with how to handle the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, according to the people who have spoken with him. “I’d love to see it worked out in a humane fashion,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Sunday, referring to potential retaliation against the demonstrators by China. “It does put pressure on the trade deal,” he added.

Mr. Trump also indicated that the Chinese tech giant Huawei, which his administration sees as a national security threat, might not receive an extension of a reprieve that allows American companies to supply it with certain goods despite a ban on such trade.

“Huawei is a company we may not do business with at all,” the president said, casting doubt on reports that the reprieve, which is set to expire on Monday, would be extended.

On Sunday, his advisers battled any notion that the trade war could be harming the economy. Peter Navarro, a top trade adviser who has urged the president on in his trade war, dismissed a study from researchers at Harvard, the University of Chicago, the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston that showed that the cost of Mr. Trump’s tariffs had “fallen largely on the U.S.,” not on China and other countries, as the administration has asserted.

“There’s no evidence whatsoever that American consumers are bearing any of this,” Mr. Navarro said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” insisting, despite abundant data to the contrary, that “they’re not hurting anybody here.”

While maintaining that any turmoil in the economy is overstated, Mr. Navarro and Larry Kudlow, the White House economic adviser, also said the Federal Reserve had slowed economic growth, mirroring Mr. Trump’s criticisms.

Mr. Kudlow, appearing on Fox News Sunday, said that the state of the economy under the Trump administration “is kind of a miracle, because we face severe monetary restraint from the Fed.”

Mr. Navarro, appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, blamed the Fed for raising interest rates “too far, too fast,” adding that “they have cost us a full point” of growth in gross domestic product.

Mr. Trump has also struck an increasingly strident economic tone.

“You have no choice but to vote for me because your 401(k), everything is going to be down the tubes” if Democrats win, he told a crowd at a campaign rally in Manchester, N.H., last week. “Whether you love me or hate me, you’ve got to vote for me.”

...Long-serving aides say that Mr. Trump understands that presidents face harder re-election battles in a bad economy, and he has made the issue central to his presidency.

But even as he returns to Washington facing new pressures, Mr. Trump did not seem to anticipate a quick resolution to the trade war. “The tariffs have cost nothing, in my opinion, or certainly very little,” in terms of pain to American consumers and businesses, Mr. Trump insisted, adding that “China is eating the tariffs.”

“China would like to make a deal,” he said. “I’m not ready.”